I heard a rattling from the front of my MINI today, so I took a look. Somehow, one of the strut mounting bolts on the sheared and was sitting there broken off and rattling! I am going to the track on Friday, so I need this fixed ASAP.

Does anyone know how difficult a job getting a new strut mount installed is? Also, how safe is it to drive (at slow highway speeds) with this broken?

Thanks!

 

You're going to have to remove the strut from the car, compress
the springs, and replace the top with a new one. It's not hard to
do, but some people have trouble doing the front struts for some
reason.

As long as the strut mount is pretty tightly on there with 2 bolts, it
would stay but i would not recommend driving it like that.

 

I don't have spring compressors currently, and I have to go to the track this weekend. I'm going to drive (slowly) about 15 miles to a shop in Los Angeles and have them fix it.

...and then I'm going to get a new torque wrench...

I think this may have been caused by my over-torquing the bolt...

 

yeh, i don't know off hand what the torque rating was, but i do remember
it is not high. I use my smallest ratchet for the strut bolt nuts.

 

It's 20 ft-lbs. I think my torque wrench is off - I had it set to 20 ft-lbs, but it must not be working correctly.